Improvement in street-cars



3 Sheets--Slheet l,

STEPH ENSN.

Street-Cars.

i vP-at-ented June 3.0515874.

W/T/VESSS: ZM

vSSheets--Sheet 2.

1.. STEPHEANSUN'.

Street-Cars.

Patented June 30,181.4.

m. W f V w 3 Sheets--Sheet 3. v l. STEPHENSON.

Street-Cars. Y NO. 152,701. P atentedlurxe 30,1874. v

fm By .Attorney UNITED STATES ATENT Trigon.

' JOHN STEPHENSON, OF NEV YORK, N. Y.

IMPROVEMENT IN STREET-CARS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 152,701, dated June5l), 1874 g application filed .Tune S, 1874.

To all whom it may concern Be it known that I, JOHN STEPHnNsoN, of NewYork, in the county of New York and State of New York, have inventedcertain new and useful Improvements in the Method of ConstructingStreet-Gars; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full,clear, and exact description thereof, which will enable others skilledin the art to which it pertains to make and use the same, referencebeing had to the accompanying drawings, and to the letters of referencemarked thereon, which forni a part of this specification, in which-Figure l represents a side elevation of therear end of a car having myimprovement applied thereto, the forward end of the car being broken offand the runninggear removed. Fig. 2 represents a horizontal section ofthe same, and Fig. 3 a vertical longitudinal section. Fig. 4l representsa plan of the under side of Fig. 1, showing the manner of supporting theappendage in the rear of the car. Fig. 5 represents a detail section,showing one mode of supporting the lower end of the sliding door uponthe rail. Fig. 6

,represents a side elevation of a car having my improvement appliedthereto, showing the manner of operating the door by the driver in frontof the car, a portion of the car being broken out of the middle.

My invention relates to a new and improved mode of constructing the bodyof street-cars, with a view of increasing their convenience and safety,and is especially adapted -to cars in which the door for the entranceand exit of the passengers is operated by the driver, and the cars runwithout the aid of a conductor.

My improvement for this purpose consists in combining, with the mainbody of a streetcar, an appendage or extension at the rear, in which isarranged a sliding entrance door or doors, when such appendage is somade as to inclose the space usually occupied by the rear platform, andso constructed in all its details and parts as to form a separate andindependent portion of the carthat is to say, constructed withindependent and detachable walls, roof, or hood, frame-work, anddoor-and the whole as thus made suitably secured to the rear end ofthemain body of the car, and upheld by independent splayed or divergingsupporting-beams suitably but detachably secured to the frame-work ofthe main body.

To enable others skilled in the art to make, construct, and use myimprovement, I will now proceed to describe its parts in detail.

The main body A of the car may be made of the usual length andconstruction, with the exception of its rear end, from which the usualdoor, pillars, panels, and frame-work are removed, and a couple of plainside pillars, B, substituted in their place, and which are connectedtogether at their top by a frame-piece, O, of suitable shapeand'construction. Thus constructed, the car is then provided at its rearend with an independent extension or appendage, D, so as to inclose thespace usually occupied by the rear platform. This appendage is erectedon a separate and distinct frame-work or s1' p gort, consisting of railsor timbers E, bolted or otherwise suitably secured at their rear end. tothe sills F F of the main body of the car. These beams are made todiverge from each other as they recede from the rear toward `the frontof the car, and may be braced or stayed, if desired, in any suitablemanner, in order to give greater strength and rigidity to them. UponVthe upper side of that portion of the timbers E which project beyond therear end of the main body of-the car is secured the licor G of theappendage, and which will be made of such form as it'is desired to giveto the appendage D; but the curved form is preferred. On this floor iserected the wall or walls H of the extension D, which are then suitablyand iirmlv connected to the rear end of the main body of the car, andprovided with an independent hood or supplementary roof, I, and with anopening or openings, L, for the door or doors M. WV hen two doors areused they will be arranged one on each side of the car, in the manner ofthe one shown at M, Figs. 1 and 2; but when only one is used it may thenbe arranged at any convenient place in the extension, although a doorarranged at the right-hand side, as shown in Fig. 1, has proved botheffective and desirable. The door or doors thus arranged are made tomove on a guideway, either on the inside or outside of the rear end ofthe extension.

This mode may be effected in various waysas, for instance, bylsuspending the door from the top by attaching it to the arms of two ormore pivotal pins, each of which carries a friction-roll, and these thenmade to rest and move on a rail secured to and depending from the roofor upper end of the rear wall of the extension, or to both. lhen sosupported Athe door may be made to slide either on the inside or outsideof the extension, as may be desired; or the doors may be supported onrollers a a, each of which may be mounted on an axis properly secured tothe foot ofthe door, in the manner'shown in Fig. 1, or on an axissecured to or formed on suitable legs which are iirmly secured to thebottom of the door, in the manner shown in Fig. (i. In either case theymay be made to rest on a rail or way on the floor, in which event thedoor would slide within the extension, or on a rail, c, supported on ersecured to the outer edge of a supportingbeam, fv, which is bolted orotherwise secured to the bottom of the iioor of the lextension of thecar, in the manner shownr in Figs. 3 and el. In this case the door willmove on the outside of the extension. Or the door may be similarlysupported from below, so as to move on the outside ofthe extension, byarranging the rail or way c, on which it is to move, at the rear end ofthe extension, but beneath the iloor, as shown in Fig. 6. In this casethe rail is sup ported by brackets c, suitably secured to the under sideof the floor.

1n applying the rail to the extension it, in each case, is so formed andsecured as to con- `form to the shape of the latter, and when locatedbeneath the door, is so arranged as to lie within the outer edge of theloor of the extension. To prevent undue strain on the iioor by attachingthe brackets directly to it, thick iiat blocks of wood may be interposedbetween them, the blocks being first secured to the floor, and then thebrackets to them.

As a rule, I prefer to support the door on rollers mounted on an axisformed on or otherwise secured to the legs d d', in the manner shown inFic'. (i, as it presents au easy and simple mode of attaching themechanism by which the driver operates the door where the car isintended to be operated in that way 5 otherwise, where the passengersare to open and close the entrance-door, the method shown in Figs. l and2 is preferred. In the former ease the legs d d are secured to the doorat or near its lower corners, and so as to extend downward below thelevel of the ear-body, that the foot of the one, say d, may form an axisfor the door-roller or sheave-wheel, and the foot of the other, d, restin the end of the lever which operates the door, while a spur from thesame leg forms an axis for the other sheave wheel. The two wheels, asbefore stated, rest upon the rail, and thus support the door. Thesewheels are grooved or flanged, so as to embrace, as it were, the sidesor the rail, in order to prevent their displacement. The upper end ofthe door takes into and travels in a groove or guideway, n, cut in. orotherwise 'formed on the under side of the frame-work of the roof of theextension, as in Figs. 3 and 4, and may be arranged on the mside oroutside of the extension, according as the door is made to move withinor without. The lower end of the leg el', as before stated, is made torest in a bearing formed in the end of a lever, J-that is to say, ispivoted to the lever J, and the latter in turn pivoted to the stud-pinor pivot K. rlhe pivot-pin K is rmly secured to the bottom ofthe ear atsuch point as will make the lever thus pivoted a radius of the circle ofwhich the extension is a segment, so that as the lever J is .turned onits pivotal center, it will, through the leg df, or other equivalentdevice or connection, open or close the door, according to the directionin which the lever is moved by the driver. The lever J itself isoperated by means of a rod or lever7 O, the one end of which ispivotally connected to one end of the lever J, and the other to a crank,1, made fast to a rock-shaft, Q, arranged at the front of the car, andwhich carries at its upper end a crank ,handle or lever, R, by which thedriver is enabled to open or close the door, as circumstances mayrequire. The same devices slightly modifiedas, for instance, byconnecting the leg el to the lever by a slot instead of apivotal hole,or

by the interposition of a link-lever between them-may be applied to theoperating of the door of au extension where it has to be moved in astraight line, as, for instance, in an eX- tension where its sides areset at an angle to each other; or, in other words, where a horizontalsection of the extension would present the main features of alongitudinal section of the frustum of a cone, and which constitutes amodified form of my improved appendage or extension.

Various other modes of operating the door of a ear having an extensionin the rear might be described, such as those described in my pendingapplication, marked Case B B, filed January 9, 1874;; but such, for thatreason, are not here deemed necessary to be described.

A car thus made is more convenient for the passengers getting in andout, and much less liable to accident, besides being much more roomy.

In this patent I do not claim a street-car provided with the curvedextension in the rear, which forms a continuous part of said ear but 1.A street-car having an independent or detachable appendage or extension,D, in the rear, substantially as described.

2. The combination of a car-body with au independent or detachableappendage, D, in the rear, provided with a sliding entrance door ordoors of conformable shape, substantially as set forth. y

3. The combination of a car-body with an independent or detachableappendage or extension, D, in the rear, provided with a sliding entrancedoor or doors, M, and a rail or Way, c, of conformable shape,substantially as set forth.

4'. The combination of a oar-body with an independent or detachableappendage or eX- tension, D, in the rear, provided With a slidingent-rance door or doors, M, supported on rolers or sheaves a, and with arail or Way, c,

said doors and way being ofoonformable shape, substantially as setforth.

In testimony that I ela-iin the' foregoing as of my own invention, Ihereunto ax my signature in presence of two Witnesses.

JOHN STEPHENSON.

Titnesses i WILLIAM J. WALKER, JOHN SMITH.

